Correlative level coding and maximum-likelihood decoding

Modems for digital communication often adopt the so-called correlative level coding or the partial-response signaling, which attains a desired spectral shaping by introducing controlled intersymbol interference terms. In this paper, a correlative level encoder is treated as a linear finite-state machine and an application of the maximum-likelihood decoding (MLD) algorithm, which was originally proposed by Viterbi in decoding convolutional codes, is discussed. Asymptotic expressions for the probability of decoding error are obtained for a class of correlative level coding systems, and the results are confirmed by computer simulations. It is shown that a substantial performance gain is attainable by this probabilistic decoding method.